During the manufacturing of mechanical devices, electromechanical devices, and electrical devices, a vacuum pick-up end effecter is often used to pick and place components into the device being manufactured.
One example of a device that is often manufactured utilizing a vacuum pick-up end effecter is a hard disk drive (HDD). HDDs typically employ a moveable head actuator to frequently access large amounts of data stored on a disk. An HDD typically includes a head disk assembly (HDA) including at least one magnetic disk, a disk clamp and a disk fastener to mount the disk to a spindle motor that rapidly rotates the disk, and a head stack assembly (HSA) that includes a moveable actuator arm and a head gimbal assembly (HGA) with a moveable transducer head for reading and writing data from and to the disk. The HSA forms part of a servo control system that positions the moveable head over a particular track on the disk to read or write information from and to that track. During the manufacturing of a disk drive, a vacuum pick-up end effecter may be utilized to pick and place components into the disk drive being manufactured, such as, latches, ramps, disks, spindle motors, disk clamps, and various other HDA, HSA, and HGA components.
As devices become smaller and smaller, their various components also become smaller and smaller, such that vacuum pick-up end effecters to manufacture these devices need to be updated to effectively accommodate these smaller and lighter weight components. This is especially true in high technology manufacturing for such devices as computers, disk drives, wireless devices, cell phones, etc., which are increasing becoming smaller and smaller. Unfortunately, currently utilized vacuum pick-up end effecters are not effectively picking and placing these smaller and lighter weight components in device manufacturing such that: additional time is being added to the manufacturing process to fix errors, many devices are not being successfully assembled resulting in lower yield, and costs in the manufacturing process are significantly increasing. Accordingly, more efficient techniques for vacuum pick-up end effecters are sought after.